The Eight Regional Primate Research Centers: Centers of
Suffering and Death

The use of primates in experimentation is a very
ephemeral issue, which seems to escape your grasp just when you think that
you have finally captured it. This issue seems to expand while you hold it,
becoming larger and more monstrous at every turn. The means of inflicting
suffering on primates are so many and varied, so extreme as to be
unimaginable. Just when you think that you have seen the worst, something
still more heinous rears its ugly head.

In the past I had used estimated approximately 60,000
primates as the population in laboratories in the U.S. However, this number
dealt only with animals who were actually experimented on, not taking into
account primates kept within laboratories for breeding purposes. When the
number is increased to include all primates in labs or breeding colonies
associated with labs the number becomes substantially larger. While
accuracy in this area is difficult, a safe approximation would likely put
80,000 - 100,000 primates in laboratory cages in the U.S.

While these 80,000  100,000 primates are
scattered throughout many facilities in the U.S., the eight regional primate
research centers imprison a large percentage of the victims. The eight
regional primate research centers are simultaneously some of the largest and
most expensive laboratories vivisecting primates in the U.S.

The primate centers are funded through these
entities: the University of Washington, Seattle; the University of
California, Davis; the University of Wisconsin, Madison; Emory University;
Harvard University; the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research; Oregon
Health Sciences University; and Tulane University.

DEATH, BIRTH, AND MORTALITY

The eight primate centers (these statistics are
based on progress reports filed with the NIH by each facility) collectively
imprisoned 25,094 primates in 1999. 3000 of these primates died (1367
during experimentation, 1633 of natural causes).

During 1999 3463 primates were born at these labs. However,
many of the primates born at these facilities do not live. One example
would be the colony at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. During 1999
there were 203 births at the UW. 16 of these were stillbirths. 44 more
primates died while very young. This works out to an infant mortality rate
of 30%. While this seems high, it is not the worst. At Harvard/New
England Regional Primate Research Center (NERPRC) 223 primates were born
during 1999. However, the facility lists doing necropsies (post-mortem
reports) on 125 neonatal animals. That works out to an infant mortality
rate of 56%. The California Regional Primate Research Center at the
University of California, Davis had 572 births in 1999. However there were
at least 131 deaths of young animals. This is an infant mortality rate of
22.9%.

Overall death rates at the primate centers vary
significantly from facility to facility. However, the research colony at
the Yerkes Primate Center (affiliated with Emory University) has the highest
non-experimental death rate  at 300. 14.5% of the animals in this colony
died of non-experimental causes. In the breeding colony at Yerkes 75
primates died of non-experimental causes. In total 375 primates died of
disease, trauma, and similar causes at Yerkes. We must begin to wonder
about the animal care, or the lack thereof, at Yerkes. Other facilities
with high non-experimental death rates include the breeding colonies at the
University of Washington (10.6%), Harvard/NERPRC (9.1%), and the research
colony at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (8.6%).

The primates at these facilities sufferfrom conditions like pneumonia,
enteritis, encephalitis, hepatitis, and many other pathological conditions.

WASTED TAX DOLLARS

Every year the eight primate center laboratories
receive $245,378,191 in federal grants from the National Institutes of
Health (the branch of the NIH which funds the primate centers is the
National Center for Research Resources  NCRR). Every day the NIH spends
$672,269 on the primate centers. Another $29,821,670 comes from other
sources, both private and governmental. This makes a grand total of
$275,199,861 in funding from all sources. On the average each primate
center receives $34,399,982 per year. Or, for the purpose of imprisoning
and torturing these 25,094 primates, the federal government spends $10,966
per animal per year.

The big winner in this game of primate slaughter
for fun & profit is the University of Washington, Seattle  with a grand
total of $82,539,354* coming into the university as a result of primate
experimentation. The Delta center at Tulane comes in second, receiving
$41,129,021. Yerkes comes in third receiving $33,940,932. Amounts for the
other labs are: Harvard $27,050,262, U.C. Davis 27,162,490, Oregon Health
Sciences $25,968,017, Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research
$19,170,198 and the University of Wisconsin comes in last with $17,439,587.
However, at last report the University of Wisconsin was building more
laboratory space.

The experimentation carried out at these
laboratories has many variations. In general it falls into these
categories: primate breeding, infectious diseases, neurology, and
psychology. Each of the primate centers has different focuses, but they
have many things in common as well.

One issue that is relevant to all of the primate
centers is duplication of experimentation. To address this issue it is
necessary to look at experimentation in several areas. The areas of
experimentation that we will examine are: drug addiction, and visual/brain
mapping.

These brands of research are not unique to the
primate centers. The CRISP (Computer Retrieved Information on Scientific
Projects  a database maintained by the National Institutes of Health)
system shows 60 separate grants which involve both cocaine and macaque
monkeys. Many of these grants are funded at the primate centers. Addiction
experimentation is currently underway at Harvard, Emory, and the University
of Washington in Seattle. While the UW has not made addiction a major area
of study, both Yerkes and the New England Regional Primate Research Center
(affiliated with Harvard) perform many addiction experiments on primates.
Each facility has several grants in this area, with numerous sub-projects.
However, it is also important to note that facilities such as the University
of Michigan, the Medical College of Virginia, Johns Hopkins, the University
of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and several other labs also study addiction
in primates.

These experiments in drug addiction confine
primates to restraint chairs. Unfortunately macaque monkeys, baboons, and
squirrel monkeys do not willingly ingest drugs like cocaine and PCP.
Therefore they must be motivated. This motivation can come in many forms.
Food is one common reward. However, if food is to be an effective reward
then the animal must be kept hungry. Therefore, the food allotment given to
the primate is reduced substantially. One other method of inducing primates
to self-ingest addictive drugs involves subjecting them to electric shock.

The area of vision experimentation is also
riddled with duplication. Dozens of laboratories are funded to perform many
experiments in this area. This experimentation puts electrodes directly
into the brain of an awake primate. Again, the monkey must be coerced into
participation in the project. In this instance water is often used as a
reward. Therefore the primate is kept thirsty, with water deprivation
reaching as much as 23 hours per day. The primate centers are deeply
involved in this kind of experimentation with the UW Seattle, Yerkes,
Harvard, and Tulane performing these experiments along with other labs like
UCLA, Baylor, etc.

Other areas of potential duplication include
psychological research (experiments such as maternal deprivation  and many
variants of this kind of experiment), reproductive research, HIV, etc. If
an experiment can be done on primates it usually is, and repeatedly.

How
do we impact this issue?? First, we MUST raise public awareness. Most
people do not know the sheer number of primates imprisoned in the primate
centers, or the mountains of money that are wasted in these labs. The
information in this article should prepare us for discussing this issue
intelligently. Your legislators should know that you question the
expenditure of over $250,000,000 on eight primate labs that cannot
accurately claim to have cured anything.